Page 44 of Star Prince

She didn’t have to see his face to know he was grinning.

They left the musty scent of dust and manure behind them. Ian leaned forward, accelerating faster than before. Her hair fluttered in the wind as Ian careened around a dizzying curve, blurring theagrarian landscape. Exhilarated, she threw her head back and laughed with abandon. The scenery, Ian’s company, and her freedom made it easy to believe that she had escaped her old life for good.

A particularly pretty meadow appeared in the distance. Ian slowed and veered off the road. With a hissing spray of gravel, he came to a halt. At first all she heard was the ringing in her ears when he cut off the engine. Then the chirps of crick-burrs and the drowsy buzzing of insects punctuated the silence. At the far end of the meadow a pond sparkled in the light of Grüma’s white-dwarf sun.

She followed Ian’s lead and tugged off her helmet. A faint breeze teased the fuzzy, over-processed ends of her hair, reddish gold roots deepening to brown-green ends. She ran her fingers through her locks, too invigorated to care if they stood on end. She feltalive,almost painfully so, as if every neuron in her body had wrenched free of a lifelong slumber.You’ve waited your entire life for this.

She wasn’t a loner at heart; her dreams of freedom always included an imagined future in which she shared adventures with a man she loved. Now she wondered if that man might turn out to be Ian Stone.

He dismounted and held out his hands. She grabbed them and swung her leg over the seat. Legs trembling, she gazed up at him. “You enjoyed the ride,” he said, his eyes sparkling.

She sighed. “Very much.”

He pulled his hands from hers reluctantly, as if he craved physical contact as much as she did, but wanted to hold back from engaging in it. In fact, most of the time he avoided being alone with her. He was worried about the repercussions of having a relationship with an employee, she reasoned. But surely such liaisons happened all the time in the frontier. Nothing need hold them apart here.

Her heart thudded in her throat as she raised both hands, flattening them on his chest. “That was wonderful, glorious; I can’t begin to describe it.” She took a step forward. He stepped back, as if trying to preserve the distance between them, but his boot heel caught on the thick, damp grass, and he stumbled backward. Momentum carried her forward and she landed on top of him, one knee wedged between his legs, his chest cushioning her breasts.

Damp, fragrant grass formed a green halo around them, muting the sunshine and accentuating the knowledge that she and Ian were completely alone in an isolated meadow. The awareness of his muscular body pressed so firmly to hers, took her breath away. But it was the astonishment and shared wonder in his beautiful eyes that captured her heart. With a soft sigh, she leaned over him to claim the kiss denied her since that magical night in the woods.

Closing her eyes, she buried her fingers in his silky hair. His lips were closed but, when she ran her tongue along the seam between them, theyparted. Uncertainly, then with increasing eagerness, she stroked his tongue with hers.

He didn’t respond for several shocked seconds. Then, as if something inside him gave way, he made a needy groan and splayed one hand behind her head, pressing her close to him. He kissed her deeply, hungrily, his fervor matching her own. She abandoned herself to pure sensation— his scent, his hot, slick mouth, the flexing of his firm, muscled legs twined with hers, and his warm fingertips subtly exploring her body. The feelings he evoked in her were powerfully erotic, but the pulsing heat between her thighs reminded her that she wanted more from him, much more.

But, experiencing “more” before her wedding night went against her upbringing, everything she had been taught. She shoved the unwanted warning from her mind.I’m no longer beholden to those rules. It’s my life now.Yes. She was free. She could be as wild as she wanted to be.I want more, Ian. I want it all.

As if he had heard her silent wish he rolled her onto her back in the soft grass. Passion scorched through her as his palm glided up her hip to her ribs, stopping frustratingly short of caressing her breast. With mere kisses, the pleasure he gave her was incredible—a million times better than what she had imagined from all she had read and had been told by the sophisticated instructors who’d seen to her explicit,Vash Nadah-requiredsexual education. But whatever she might lack in actual application skills, she was determined to make up for with sheer enthusiasm.

Eagerly she reached for the zipper on Ian’s coat and yanked it down to his waist.

Chapter Thirteen

Two small,strong hands sliding under his leather jacket jolted Ian back to reality. What the hell was he doing?Exactly what you swore you wouldn’t.But what had he thought would happen if he stopped in an isolated meadow that screamed of picnics-for-two and romantic interludes, with a fun, sexy woman who was not only a fantastic pilot, but gorgeous too, despite her totally bizarre hair?

He tore his mouth from hers. Hands flat on the cool grass, he raised himself over her. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, her flushed face alive with passion as she grabbed his collar, tugging him back down to her. As their lips met, white-hot desire blazed through him. Ian tried to fight back. He wanted her, but without the possibility of a future together, he couldn’t have Tee. He would not repeat the sins of his father— physical intimacy without emotionalloyalty. The only solution was to demonstrate the restraint expected of aVashprince.

But damn if she didn’t blow apart his best intentions.

The wet pointed tip of her tongue was teasing, tempting. “Come on, Ian,” she coaxed, her fingers playing in his hair. “Kiss me again.” She seemed so different...so carefree out here, alone with him.

It’sonlykissing, he reasoned, using logic he didn’t want to examine too closely. They could kiss but no more. Call it a line in the sand, he thought. One he simply wouldn’t cross…

Hungrily, he took her mouth. She uttered a muffled cry and locked her hands behind his head, kissing him back with an indescribable mix of eagerness and uncertainty, knowledge and unpracticed innocence. She felt good.Too good.He wanted to touch her, to taste her everywhere; he wanted to feel the tight, liquid heat of being inside her. But when her splayed hands slid from his chest to his abs and under the waistband of his jeans, he broke off the embrace with an effort that nearly killed him.

The line…don’tcross it.

Tee regarded him with perceptive golden eyes. “Well?” she asked breathlessly.

He exhaled. “Wow.”

Her low, husky laugh revealed her pleasure at his comment. “Better than the Harley ride, yes?”

“No contest.” He closed his eyes as she swept kisses along his jaw. “But we can’t do this.”

“Really?” Her attention lazily shifted from his eyes to his mouth. “What do you call that, then—what we just did?”

“Playing with fire.” He pushed himself up, leaving Tee lying on the trampled grass. Sitting next to her, he drew one leg up to his chest and balanced a forearm on his knee. “Which everyone knows is not a good idea.”

“I see.” She rolled onto her side, suddenly engrossed in a blade of grass which she twirled between her slender fingers. “You have a woman, then. I should have—”

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